Seventy Days
by darcyfarrow
Summary: Seventy days after exiling Rumple, Belle learns the truth: the dagger she used to command him was the fake.


He's been gone (no, she drove him away) seventy days now. She has moved past the shock: she no longer awakens in the dawn and rolls over to snuggle; in fact, she's moved out of the house altogether, and out of the library apartment too, because he gave it to her; she lives now in a duplex (though her rent check is still made out to "Gold Inc.," from which, ironically, she receives monthly dividends–his half as well as hers, since the bank can't find him.)

She has moved past the fury (on the second day of his exile, she took his cane and smashed every glass case in their shop. She understood him a little better after that.). She has moved past the sudden uncontrollable weeping (and the puzzled looks it generated from folks who openly celebrated his permanent expulsion: "What's with the waterworks, little sis? You're free of the son of a bitch," said Leroy). She's moved on, she thinks, to numbness (with occasions of backsliding).

"Are you going to do something with the shop?" the bank wants to know. "It's eating a hole in your profits from the rentals and it's generating nothing." "Closing down the shop would be a healthy next step," Archie says. And some time after that, she'd be expected to sell the pink house and give away his clothes, because that's what widows need to do. She can't face that yet, but the shop–the shop feels more like "theirs" than the house ever did, maybe because she ran it without him while he was. . . . She can't think about that, about his death and enslavement (imagining what he went through makes her feel–not _think_, because her morals are still solid, but _feel_, because she knows exactly what unjust imprisonment feels like–makes her feel Zelena deserved the death penalty, and she knows, as surely as Rumple did, the Charmings never would have sentenced her to it).

So on her day off from the library, she goes to the shop, glass shards under her feet (_see_, _Rumple_, _I_ _finally_ _took_ _your_ _advice_ _and_ _started_ _wearing_ _sensible_ _shoes_), dusty and musty so it makes her sneeze, and she props the doors open and raises the blinds and takes up her broom–and has to stop to cry, because it feels like her old self coming home (not Belle French, but Lady Belle, formerly of Avonlea, now of the Dark Mountains). She turns on the radio to a hard rock station; the singers' shrieking anger gets her angry too, and she's able to tackle the glass and the dust. The battle lasts all morning. She doesn't pause for lunch; she wants this to be done by sunset. She will remove all the magic from the shop, then when it's safe, she'll announce a giveaway: everyone can take what was once theirs. She doesn't know yet what she'll do with the magical items (certainly not give them to the fairies, who now openly curse her husband's name). But she must remove the magic so no one will get hurt (or steal it).

As she gathers the less dangerous material–spell books, sealed potions, boxed ingredients for potions–she notices their potency is weakening. She's developed a sense for such things; she's worked among these materials long enough to know. She supposes that without the sorcerer's power to draw on, their magic will fade away. Good. Good thing. She opens the safe last. That's where he keeps (kept) the really dangerous stuff.

And that's when she finds the dagger.

She's not sure at first; the box is long and shallow and narrow like a glove box. It's been sealed with blood magic–ah, but when he became hers by giving her his dagger (and she his, by accepting his ring), they became bound, and his magic recognizes her; it opens the box at her command. She lifts the Kris dagger from its lead-lined case, so shiny, so ornate it is with his name carved into the blade. She feels it thrum in her palms. It's warm, as if it's been sitting in the sun (or in his dragonskin jacket, close to his chest).

She knows then what he did. What she did. This is the real dagger. The knife the gauntlet led her to, the knife she commanded his exile with, is the fake (fake, because his magic is fake power; if he'd only realized that). The gauntlet had led her to his weakness–his false faith in magic–not his true love. She'd held no power over him at all that night.

No power other than that which he'd freely granted her. No power but the power of true love.

She drops the real dagger on the shattered glass counter. Shaking, she dials the sheriff's office. It's time for the savior to save Belle. "Finding people, that's what you do, right? Emma, I need for you to find someone. Whatever the price, I'll pay it."

"I got a pretty good idea where to start," the savior says. She doesn't question Belle's choice, though they both know, when Belle leaves to reclaim him, she can't come back. Maybe she's thinking that she should have reclaimed someone herself, the previous resident of this address, before it was too late. "89 Wooster Street."

Belle doesn't have to ask. She knows who lived there before. "Thanks. Goodbye, Emma."

"Goodbye, Belle." The savior doesn't wish her luck: luck isn't necessary when you have the power of true love.

Belle loads suitcases (his and hers) into the Caddy. With the road maps in the glove compartment (he put them there, ages ago) she grabs their ATM cards, fills the gas tank and drives east down Moncton, past the library, past Granny's, past the sheriff's station.

When she reaches the orange line, she floors the gas pedal.


End file.
